When an American flag gets torn down in Mexico
- September 1, 2021
When an Australian flag gets broken in Argentina, a Mexican flag gets stolen in Costa Rica, and a British flag gets blown up in Jamaica, there are some signs the American flag is no longer the default.
The American flag has become a lightning rod in international politics, with a string of attacks on the flag by governments from China to Brazil to Brazil, and from Washington to London.
In Argentina, President Mauricio Macri’s government announced that it was scrapping a planned referendum on whether the American or British flags should be flown at the presidential palace.
“We have decided that the British and American flags will not fly at the palace,” the president said in a statement, according to a translation by the Associated Press.
The decision is expected to be made in the coming days.
Macri was elected last month.
It’s not just the British.
In June, Brazil’s leftist president Dilma Rousseff, who was accused by President Trump of having ties to a Russian-backed oil company, was stripped of her presidential powers after a popular referendum in the northeast state of Pará.
In the southern state of Tamaulipas, an opposition leader was charged with treason for opposing the government’s crackdown on the opposition.
In Argentina, the country’s top court ruled that the government could no longer use the American national anthem at the national stadium, and its national anthem-playing soccer team was suspended for playing an American song.
As a result, a string from the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Grateful Dead has been sung in Argentina since 2000.
And a handful of other countries have used American flags to symbolize independence.
In 2010, for instance, a group of young protesters took to the streets in Brasilia, a city in northeastern Brazil, to protest the sale of a government-owned property.
They wore American flags and carried banners reading, “I’m from the United States, but I want to stay and fight for my country.”
They were met with tear gas and a fire extinguisher.
In 2011, the United Kingdom adopted the flag of the U.S. after the government of Margaret Thatcher sold it to the U
